After many months of intensive work, the Cape Elizabeth Comprehensive Plan is nearing completion.

    For those who have not read it, the draft version of
the plan offers an detailed and comprehensive study of the state of
Cape Elizabeth, its past and the likely trends that will take it into
the future.

    The plan's authors, including citizen volunteers
under the direction of chair Barbara Schenkel and town staff, notably
Town Planner Maureen O'Meara, have done an excellent job creating a
document that manages to be detailed yet readable.  Every citizen
in the town would do themselves a favor by reading the plan's
conclusions, goals and recommended steps to implement those goals.

    These goals do not represent an abstract wish list,
but a concrete foundation upon which rules and laws will be created
that will affect many neighborhoods as well as future spending and
capital investment decisions.

    Many of the conclusions in the draft Comprehensive
Plan demonstrate that there is another group of people that ought to be
recognized: members of previous Comprehensive Plan Committees.

    Many of the current draft plan's recommendations
reaffirm the conclusions made in the last Comprehensive Plan completed
in 1993.

    It is clear that the majority of Cape Elizabeth
citizens are happy with the character, and state of Cape Elizabeth.
Those citizens should be aware that neither of these things happened
accidentally, but through the hard work and dedication of their fellow
citizens.

    That there are so many such people in the town is something each citizen should be thankful for.

                      –Ward Peck

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